When Henry Tempest inherited Broughton Hall in 1970, the house was a 97-room wreck.

It had been in the family since 1097 but after years of neglect it had a leaking roof and no heating: “There was snow on the billiard table. We had to put antifreeze down the loos,” his daughter remembered.

Nevertheless Henry set about restoring the 3,000-acre estate near Skipton, North Yorks, selling the family silver to pay for renovations and crippling death duties.

By the time he handed Broughton over to his son Roger in 1988 it had become a thriving business.

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Along with rent from numerous businesses in the business park the grounds themselves also generate income.

Corporate entertainment packages include archery and clay-pigeon shoots. And while the hall remains a family home, lunch or dinner can be laid on for clients. The estate also provides a backdrop for filming locations for films including Wuthering Heights and TV series A Woman Of Substance.

Born in 1924 into a family that traced its origins to the Norman Conquest, Henry was educated at the London Oratory School and Oxford University before joining the Scots Guards in 1944. The following year he was injured by a ricocheting bullet while crossing the Rhine. Refusing a place in the ambulance in favour of more seriously injured comrades he discovered later that the vehicle had hit a mine, killing everyone inside. “Good manners saved my life,” he said.

After the war he built a farm in Northern Rhodesia before training as an accountant and marrying wife Janet, with whom he had three daughters, Bridget, Annie and Mary, and two sons, Roger and Piers.

In 1961 they moved to Oxford, where he took a job with the university’s nuclear physics department and became an early pioneer of the computer programming language Fortran.

After the death of older brother Stephen, Henry moved his family back to North Yorkshire and set about saving the estate.

He also served on North Yorkshire County Council for 14 years and from 1981 to 1998 was the county’s deputy lieutenant.

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By the time he handed Broughton over to his son Roger in 1988 it had become a thriving business